Black and Beyond

by designspace | 07.04.14

Born in Germany, Ester Beck came to Israel in 1977 and has since 1987, when she opened her own studio, participated in many ceramic exhibitions, solo shows, and been an active member of the Israel Ceramics Association.

The origin of Beck’s work is based on pottery and on the wisdom of hands and highly coordinated interaction between the hand, head, tools, machinery and material. Beck continues the trend she began in recent years, in which, she disrupts the potter’s work, extending the boundaries of operation and stretching the limits both of the material she shapes and of her artistic abilities.

From prior knowledge and years of tradition, Beck underlays the potter’s action and deconstructs the relationship between the body, the device and the material. She stands in front of a moist lump of clay weighting between 80 to 100 kilograms and examines it. Beck prepared it with the meticulousness of a craftswoman melding gentle layers of white, gray, and brown matter into the black ceramics. The choice of color and type of material usually brings to mind a geographical location, some sort of new correspondence with imagined landscapes.

With no other means but her hands and basic aids, Beck stretches the material, explores it and pushes it to its limits, creating an abstract poetic construct. She chooses to reduce the use of technological tools and accessories to zero. Instead of mediating her work through technology, she chooses direct contact.

Beck’s work doesn’t clearly belong to one of the fields of arts, crafts, or design. They refer to the various fields of design, expressive sculptures and longstanding traditions.

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